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Closer to the Sacred Spaces

I was driven to write this post after seeing a commercial showing children and adults sitting on a dock surrounded by spectacular lake views, all looking at their black mirror phones and tablets. I think that borders on obscenity. For certain sacrilege.

Last weekend, my family and I went camping at Point Farms Provincial Park in Goderich. The drive to Southern Ontario’s “West Coast” was absolutely idyllic as we crossed through the Bruce, But it was the shores of Lake Huron that were truly balm for the soul. After weeks of political analysis for my news articles, I needed this break.

While my youngest son camped with his graduating class at the far end of the Park, and my wife slept in our Teardrop, the dog and I made the 200 step trek down the staircase from the top of the bluff to the beach. We walked for hours on the clean sand and wave washed rocks, and felt the wash of the Great Lakes winds take all our cares away.

Later joined by my wife from time to time, I made that trip up and down seven times over the next two days. We watched sunsets and sunrises, we watched the beach change from a calm waters family playground on Saturday to a wave-pounded, windswept coast line on Sunday morning.

The thought of sitting at a picnic table looking at a cell phone movie just doesn’t fit. We all need to unplug, to unplug our children if just for a while and listen once again, as Father Thomas Berry said, “to the grand liturgy of the universe.” We need to watch the sunrises and sunsets and feel the power of the wind and water.